John Killick who infamously escaped prison when his girlfriend hijacked a helicopter to break him out. Picture: Dylan RobinsonSource:News Corp Australia

AN INFAMOUS prison escapee who spent 45 days on the run after his Russian lover hijacked a helicopter and broke him out of a Sydney jail has labelled new charges against him “bulls**t”.

John Killick, 77, was released from prison in 2015 after spending 15 years behind bars for dramatically escaping Silverwater’s maximum security correctional facility by air under a hail of gunfire.

But he’s back on the radar of police after he was charged on Tuesday with knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime, dishonestly obtaining property by deception, and goods suspected stolen in premises.

He is the sixth person to be charged as an alleged member of the fraud syndicate, with three women — aged 28, 39 and 42 — receiving bail to reappear in court, and two men — 46, and 56 — behind bars. The group is accused of obtaining loans to finance high-end household items and withdraw more than $250,000 cash hidden in a Sydney bank vault.

If found guilty of the offence and for allegedly breaching his parole — which has been in place since his release from prison and isn’t due to expire until September 2022 — Killick could be sent back to jail.

Killick told news.com.au he wanted to “set the record straight” about his alleged involvement in the syndicate.

“It’s all bulls**t,” he said.

Killick is alleged to have been receiving items purchased with the fraudulently obtained credit cards to a Milsons Point unit that he lives in with his ex-wife Gloria, according to police. Gloria has not been charged in relation to the matter.

The Killicks’ home, on Sydney’s north shore, was raided by detectives from Strike Force Kurraka on September 13.

Authorities seized a chess set, rug and other items from the Milsons Point home.

“They took old clothes and shoes (that were) given to me,” Killick told news.com.au.

“In truth I was in possession of a chess set and a carpet gifted to me by a person who was involved.

“They’re trying to tie me in with a gang … I hardly had anything to do with them.”

Killick will appear in court on October 11. It’s a place the convicted bank robber has previously said he never wanted to again be.

Former bank robber John Killick at his Milsons Point home. Picture: Justin LloydSource:News Corp Australia

AUSTRALIA’S MOST DARING JAILBREAK

Killick has spent much of his adult life in and out of jail for crimes that include armed robberies at banks and jewellery stores.

The law finally caught up with him during a failed bank robbery that ended with Killick shooting at an off-duty police officer in NSW, January 1999.

“He didn’t believe my gun was real so I fired over his head to prove it was … I knew I was never going to hurt anyone … I’m not violent,” he said.

Killick, 57 at the time, was on remand in Silverwater Prison and “knew” he was going to be sentenced to at least 10 years in jail.

“You only had to look at my history then see I’d robbed another two banks and you knew I was going away for a long time,” he said.

Killick wanted out. So he plotted an escape with his girlfriend Lucy Dudko, 41, who was distraught at the prospect of life without him.

“Lucy came (to visit me in prison) and said, ‘I’ve got to get you out,’” Killick said. “I knew I couldn’t get out any other way than by surprise.”

The couple soon hatched a daring escape plan.

Lucy Dudko and John Killick met at a party in the 1990s before writing themselves into Australia’s criminal folklore.Source:Supplied

John Killick last year released a book called ‘The Last Escape’ about his infamous jailbreak.Source:Supplied

In a 2016 interview with news.com.au, Killick said he had the idea to escape prison via a hijacked helicopter because he knew it had been done in other countries. He had escaped police custody twice before but had made his previous getaways on foot and in less dramatic circumstances than his third and final escape.

“Everyone knew it would some day happen in Australia,” Killick said.

The couple discussed likely scenarios that could arise during the hijack and planned how to respond to them.

“It got down to, ‘How do we get a helicopter’ and we thought, ‘OK, you hire one’,” Killick said.

Dudko booked a scenic helicopter tour and went on a trial run before deeming the mission possible.

“(Then we thought about) if she is going to pull a gun on this guy, what’s she going to do … because common sense would tell you he’s going to maybe say ‘get stuffed, you’re not going to shoot me because then we’d crash’,” Killick said.

“But (then I thought) if I was piloting and somebody pulls a gun on me and they’re desperate, maybe they don’t care if they die, and it’s all or nothing, and I might have kids or something, so I’ll do it.

“I think most people (in the pilot’s position) would do it because it’s a pretty desperate thing.”

Killick was “always confident” Dudko would deliver on her promise and the helicopter would land on jail grounds.

“A lot of things aren’t impossible that seem impossible,” he said. “I knew she would do it.”

His only concern was whether or not the getaway helicopter would arrive in the small window of time prisoners were allowed in the yard.

“We only came out on that oval twice a week for an hour,” he said.

Silverwater prison, where Lucy Dudko landed a helicopter to free then-inmate John Killick in 1999.Source:Supplied

THE GETAWAY

On the morning of March 25, 1999, Dudko waited at the airport for Killick to give her the green light.

The helicopter had been booked to fly over the construction site of Sydney Olympic Park, which was conveniently close to Silverwater Jail where Killick was being held in Sydney’s west.

Dudko knew that Killick would be in the jail’s exercise yard just before 10am.

“Once I knew I was going to go, I rang her and said, ‘I’m going out on the oval for a run and I’ll see you when I get back,’ and she knew,” Killick told news.com.au.

“It was just before the Sydney Olympics and the prison was near the site so it wasn’t unusual for lots of helicopters to be flying in the area.”

Dudko boarded the flight at about 9am. She was a librarian studying for a doctorate in history at Macquarie University at the time and had never before committed a crime.

“That morning there was probably 12-14 helicopters that came over and not one of them was her,” Killick said.

“The sweat was pouring off, and I thought, ‘What am I going to do? She’s going to land here and I’m not going to be there because they would have taken us away at 10 o’clock.’

“It would have been the worst stand-up date in history.”

Meanwhile, Dudko spotted the prison grounds from above and sprung into action. She produced a sawn-off shotgun from her handbag and took her chopper pilot Tim Joyce hostage.

“This is a hijack,” Dudko told Joyce.

CCTV footage of John Killick escaping prison with the help of Lucy Dudko in a hijacked helicopter.Source:Supplied

In a scene reminiscent of the 1975 Charles Bronson movie Breakout — which she’d hired a week earlier — Dudko pointed the gun to Joyce’s head and ordered the chopper down on the jail oval where Killick was waiting.

About seven minutes before Killick was expected to be ordered back inside the prison, the hijacked helicopter arrived. Killick dashed towards the aircraft and jumped on board.

“I’d already had it rehearsed and I said, ‘I’m a lifer, you can make a lot of money from 60 Minutes or you can be dead, it’s your choice, you’ve got to get me out of here’,” Killick said.

“And (Joyce) said, ‘Don’t worry mate, I’ll get you out of here.’”

As the helicopter took off, other prisoners tried to grab on to the aircraft and hitch a ride as guards opened fire on the fugitives and Joyce.

“I didn’t think (the prison guards would) shoot,” Killick said.

“I’d read (a book) that said under the Geneva Convention the prison guard is not allowed to shoot at aircraft because it could be a hostage situation. I got the shock of my life when they hit us twice.

“I got in the helicopter first and I sat down and heard (gun shots) and we were very lucky, (they) missed (anything important), it would have brought us down if it was the tiniest bit closer.

“I think it was fate, just meant to be.”

The duo flew to freedom before they ditched Joyce, hijacked a car and went on the run in Victoria and NSW for 45 days.

“We even tried to get jobs as dish hands out the back of a kitchen at one stage,” Killick said.

John Killick and Lucy Dudko pulled off one of the most daring jail escapes in Australia’s history.Source:Supplied

John Killick and Lucy Dudko dumped the hijacked helicopter and pilot, who was not physically harmed, and went on the run for 45 days.Source:News Limited

They became the most wanted people in the country. But their luck soon ran out. The pair was eventually arrested at Bass Hill Tourist Park, where they had booked a cabin under the names Mr and Mrs M.G. Brown.

“We both knew what we were doing,” Killick said. “It ended up badly but at the time it seemed like a good idea.”

Killick was sentenced to 15 years prison and relocated to Goulburn Jail.

Dudko was sentenced to a maximum 10 years and sent to Mulawa women’s prison (now known as Silverwater). But the couple went to extraordinary lengths to keep their love alive.

In prison, they exchanged thousands of letters and had a formal marriage request refused by prison authorities in 2000.

The relationship ended when Dudko sent Killick a final letter informing him she had rediscovered her faith in God and didn’t want to continue their relationship.

Dudko was granted parole in 2006 and has reportedly since changed her name in a bid to keep a low profile. She currently lives and works in Sydney, and declined the opportunity to talk to news.com.au.

Killick was paroled in 2014 but soon found himself locked up again over one of his earlier jail escapes, until his most recent release on January 22, 2015.

Lucy Dudko hijacked a helicopter to help John Killick escape from Silverwater prison in 1999.Source:News Limited

John Killick and Lucy Dudko at Rosehill Racecourse.Source:News Corp Australia

‘IT WAS RECKLESS AND FOOLISH’

The former flames wrote themselves into Australian criminal folklore when they executed the most daring prison escape of all time but it’s not something Killick’s proud of, according to him.

“I’m disappointed in myself that I did it,” he said. “When you look back at it, it was reckless and just foolish really.

“I get a lot of people saying, ‘You pulled it off,’ but I didn’t pull it off because getting out is only a part of it. There’s no use just getting out, you’ve got to be able to carry on from there so it was a failure as far as I’m concerned.

“It caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people. I often look back and I’ve probably got hundreds of victims — if you rob 10 banks you’ve probably got 200 victims — you can shatter people and cause them a lot of trauma and this can transpose across their families and to a lot of members.”

Killick previously said he has learned to appreciate the simple things in life since being released from prison.

“I’m a pretty boring guy at the moment and I want to stay that way,” he said.

“I’m just thankful to be alive and I’m hoping I’ve got another 10 good years to be able to enjoy and to do some good things and maybe at the end they’ll say, ‘He was a bad bugger but he came good at the end.’